Paul Wilson: Uh, This Just In…

As a result of the businesses I’m involved in -competitive intelligence being among them – I subscribe to a number of key word search news services. Services that constantly scan using words and phrases of interest to you and comparing against anything that’s published on the Internet. They, in turn, email any findings that match my search queries. It’s about the only way to have an early view into corporate changes, filings, etc., before the window of opportunity slams shut and something becomes public knowledge.

Among the more mainstream sites I subscribe to is the Kansas City Star and its kansascity.com news service.

I get notices two or three times a day, I would guess and there’s never anything earth shattering in it. It’s mostly just a local news update for me.

Kansascity.com, you’re an on line new site. On line means breaking news ALERTS should be just that. The most current of current news. The latest in details on a story that’s out there. Not a rehash of something the previous night’s local television news focused on for an hour!

Since this was a wall-to-wall story most of the day yesterday, I went back and looked for some time lines on how and when this was first reported. The Star covered it with the same headline 19 hours prior to this morning’s BREAKING NEWS ALERT!

Really, kansascity.com?

This is your online news service. This is what you are sending subscribers for up to the minute, breaking news stories! Nineteen hours later and it’s still a breaking news alert?

I liked Rainbow Man’s comment on KCC concerning the airport story; “This was one of the best takes on the airport situation I have read yet.” More and more often, new stories are getting discussed and dissected here with multiple points of view and readers that provide far more valuable insight than the mainstream news media. Readers, many times, who have a viewpoint you’re not going to see many other places on the local front.

I’ve seen the Star do some odd, untimely things, but this took the cake when I opened it with my morning coffee.

BREAKING NEW; THIS JUST IN! Generalissimo Francisco Franco; STILL dead!